The story of my life and how Baldur's Gate ruined JRPGs for me.
So once upon a time I loved JRPGs and didn't even know there was a divide between "WRPGs" and "JRPGs".
I played through many a Final Fantasy game, Tales series, Fire Emblem, and other such JRPGs.
I dabbled into Kotor and Dragon age: Origins and enjoyed them but it wasn't until Baldur's Gate when I crossed the point of no return (no backward glances, our games of make believe are at an end!. . .oh wait hehe).
I had played Baldur's Gate as a child when my brother had it but I also couldn't read back then and spent ages just exploring Candlekeep and sometimes I'd stumble into talking to Gorion and watching him get murdered and having no idea what was going on lol.
Years later I see BG:EE I'm like, "Oh! I remember this! Wait, it's a D&D game? Oh crap I love Dungeons and Dragons!"
I had just started playing D&D in 2011 in a 3.5 game. I played 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5e mostly so I had no knowledge of 2e rules.
So I buy BG:EE do some research and install a no class/race restriction mod. I make an Elf Wizard (Necromancer) based on my very first D&D character in 3.5, a Drow Necromancer named Val'myr Zaur.
I mess around for a few days, playing for 30 mins at a time. Then I remember one day just binging on the game and getting sucked into the narrative and characters. I fell in love with the pause system and kept going. I met Alora and absolutely fell in love with her character. I RPed my character and her having a relationship despite no one actually existing lol.
I then finally beat Sarevok. I felt SO HYPE. I HAD to get the second one. . . but BG2:EE wasn't released.
So I went and bought the original BG2. I made a new char, based on the old one. I kept re-rolling until I got the same stats. I didn't even know the stat tomes existed on my first run of BG:EE so it wasn't too hard. I also hard very sub-par stats because I thought they worked like 3rd edition.
I missed Alora but found a new love, Aerie. I also loved Mazzy but unfortunately can't romance her T_T
I ventured through the game, defeating Irenicus and feeling even more hype!
Eventually BG2:EE came out and I instantly picked it up and played the whole thing as a Blackguard from start to the beginning of TOB. I've neve finish TOB
Now a delightful game called Bravely Default had come out on the 3ds. It's like the old Final Fantasy games I loved so much! I picked it up and played through 30 hours or so but it just felt so. . .meh. I didn't know what it was for the longest time. Then it struck me. I felt so invested in Baldur's Gate because I was my character. I wasn't playing a character.
The reason I fell in love with D&D was because I was my character.
I can still play things like Fire Emblem: Awakening where you make the protagonist but pre-generated characters in rpgs just don't work for me anymore
I feel bad because I try to go back and play things like FF4 and I just can't.
I played Kotor and DA:O again and discovered that beauty of being your character. I played Morrowind for the first time and had the same feeling.
I go and play FF12 (which is my favorite of the numbered series) and I just feel so. . .detached. I feel bad because my best friend is a JRPG fanatic like I used to be. We're now on opposite sides where he hates making characters and I hate playing pre-generated ones.
Oh Baldur's Gate! You might be my most favorite game series of all time but you ruined an entire genre for me XD
I'm wondering, has anyone else had similar feels? I'd also like to say I'm not trying to start a WRPG vs JRPG debate >_> I see the value of both and just now prefer WRPGs in general.
I also posted this in off topic as it's of Baldur's Gate but not directly about it. If I'm posting this in the wrong place then just say
TL;DR version.
Baldur's Gate made me realize being myself in a video game is way more fun and emotionally investing for me than playing a pre-generated character like in most JRPGs. Anyone else feel mah feels?
I played through many a Final Fantasy game, Tales series, Fire Emblem, and other such JRPGs.
I dabbled into Kotor and Dragon age: Origins and enjoyed them but it wasn't until Baldur's Gate when I crossed the point of no return (no backward glances, our games of make believe are at an end!. . .oh wait hehe).
I had played Baldur's Gate as a child when my brother had it but I also couldn't read back then and spent ages just exploring Candlekeep and sometimes I'd stumble into talking to Gorion and watching him get murdered and having no idea what was going on lol.
Years later I see BG:EE I'm like, "Oh! I remember this! Wait, it's a D&D game? Oh crap I love Dungeons and Dragons!"
I had just started playing D&D in 2011 in a 3.5 game. I played 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5e mostly so I had no knowledge of 2e rules.
So I buy BG:EE do some research and install a no class/race restriction mod. I make an Elf Wizard (Necromancer) based on my very first D&D character in 3.5, a Drow Necromancer named Val'myr Zaur.
I mess around for a few days, playing for 30 mins at a time. Then I remember one day just binging on the game and getting sucked into the narrative and characters. I fell in love with the pause system and kept going. I met Alora and absolutely fell in love with her character. I RPed my character and her having a relationship despite no one actually existing lol.
I then finally beat Sarevok. I felt SO HYPE. I HAD to get the second one. . . but BG2:EE wasn't released.
So I went and bought the original BG2. I made a new char, based on the old one. I kept re-rolling until I got the same stats. I didn't even know the stat tomes existed on my first run of BG:EE so it wasn't too hard. I also hard very sub-par stats because I thought they worked like 3rd edition.
I missed Alora but found a new love, Aerie. I also loved Mazzy but unfortunately can't romance her T_T
I ventured through the game, defeating Irenicus and feeling even more hype!
Eventually BG2:EE came out and I instantly picked it up and played the whole thing as a Blackguard from start to the beginning of TOB. I've neve finish TOB
Now a delightful game called Bravely Default had come out on the 3ds. It's like the old Final Fantasy games I loved so much! I picked it up and played through 30 hours or so but it just felt so. . .meh. I didn't know what it was for the longest time. Then it struck me. I felt so invested in Baldur's Gate because I was my character. I wasn't playing a character.
The reason I fell in love with D&D was because I was my character.
I can still play things like Fire Emblem: Awakening where you make the protagonist but pre-generated characters in rpgs just don't work for me anymore
I feel bad because I try to go back and play things like FF4 and I just can't.
I played Kotor and DA:O again and discovered that beauty of being your character. I played Morrowind for the first time and had the same feeling.
I go and play FF12 (which is my favorite of the numbered series) and I just feel so. . .detached. I feel bad because my best friend is a JRPG fanatic like I used to be. We're now on opposite sides where he hates making characters and I hate playing pre-generated ones.
Oh Baldur's Gate! You might be my most favorite game series of all time but you ruined an entire genre for me XD
I'm wondering, has anyone else had similar feels? I'd also like to say I'm not trying to start a WRPG vs JRPG debate >_> I see the value of both and just now prefer WRPGs in general.
I also posted this in off topic as it's of Baldur's Gate but not directly about it. If I'm posting this in the wrong place then just say
TL;DR version.
Baldur's Gate made me realize being myself in a video game is way more fun and emotionally investing for me than playing a pre-generated character like in most JRPGs. Anyone else feel mah feels?
17
Comments
Also, for some reason, I tend to not like the character I'm forced to play. If I don't like the character, I can't become attached to him/her, and find myself not wanting to play the game because I dont' care what happens. The thing about FPS games is that your character often doesn't talk, meaning I can visualise whatever voice/look I want, but when your character does talk and it's in a voice that you hate the sound of, you can't do anything about it.
Of course, the disadvantage with being able to create your own character is that the story has to accomodate a wider variety of backgrounds/play styles (hence why you almost never have living parents but must be the foster child of somebody).
There are other reasons, though, why I don't play JRPGs; I don't generally like the graphics, as I'm much more of a fan of realistic looking pseudo-medieval style art, and have never, ever, been into anime/manga (nothing wrong with those who do like it, it's just not my cup of tea). I also tend to not like the combat systems, and prefer it when your improved prowess is reflected in higher to-hit chances or more attacks.
i did, however, find myself until just recently always playing as myself. my characters would always be a human male by my name and just listening to my own morals. about a year ago, however, I embarked on a BG multiplayer game, along with others who wanted to try a different way of playing the game, and I felt in the environment I would do good to be something more. i made myself a half elf and one of the other members showed me to an elf name converter that translated my name to Maeglin. since this game started I began to less frequently have the simply me in a fantasy world runs, and I also took Maeglin into a BG single player game. my 2nd on going playthrough of Dragon Age Inquisition is actually a female elf with my name translated to female elven, apparantly being Sairalinde.
i guess it's not the same, but a BG multiplayer game has extended my horizon beyond being me in a new world and now I also think up characters that aren't me that I want to play. my first playthrough is still likely to always be me as going in blind is easiest for me to just follow my moral compass as I go, but subsequent playthroughs I am likely to mix things up and do something different.
Baldur's Gate made me realize being myself in a video game is way more fun and emotionally investing for me than playing a pre-generated character like in most JRPGs. Anyone else feel mah feels?
You are not alone!
Except for Final Fantasy 6 (3 in the U.S.) and Chrono Trigger.
And maybe some others XD
On topic: I also love creating and roleplaying my own characters.
/thread.
Okay, okay, I'll evaluate a little more than that, I guess... *eyeroll*
See, I've always loved JRPGs for the same reasons I love reading books.
Because that's what a JRPG is: it's a living book.
Think about it. When you first open up those pages, you step into another person's shoes and follow their story from start to finish. The story is scripted and pre-determined, and there is nothing that you, the reader, can do to change it (unless you're reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book).
It's the same idea when you press Start on a JRPG loading screen. You step into the shoes of another character and follow his or her story. Except there's fighting and gorgeous music and lovely voice-acting and pretty cut-scenes and crafting systems and a bajillion other things.
When I pick up a JRPG, I don't want to play as myself. I want step into another person's shoes and see their world through their eyes. I want to watch the story unfold just like I would watch a movie or a play or a book or a comic. And so I don't see any reason why JRPGs in particular get so much flack for doing this thing that countless other forms of media do on a regular basis.
All that being said, I love WRPGs like Baldur's Gate too. Because there is something so satisfying about being able to make your own character (not always a mirror of yourself, but a person who came from your own heart!) go through the story and carve your own path.
But do I think WRPGs are naturally better in this regard? No. Not always. Skyrim's a big example of how being able to make your own character doesn't always mean a rewarding narrative experience. The plot's as generic and plain as chicken noodle soup, and it has to be that way because who knows what kind of crazy characters all these wild players will concoct in character creation? It needs a universal plot that can encompass a lot of characters, but as consequence, its story won't be as tightly-knit or woven in the game as a JRPG's, which already has an established protagonist with thoughts and feelings of his or her own that the writers can develop throughout the narrative.
In the end, they're just different story-telling styles, and both of them come with their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. So I like both.
The main thing to remember is that they - JRPGs and WRPGs - are different games that share the same genre. Just like Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament are different games that share the FPS genre. There's nothing wrong with enjoying both, even if one of them isn't somebody else's cup of tea. Purists will protest, and give 101 reasons why one sucks and the other doesn't, and why you're a noob if you play one type and not the other (and both camps are guilty of this!), but at the end of the day, we all like what we like, and no amount of insults written in cyberspeak (and poor grammar) is going to change that.
What I find the best way of rating cRPGs, is by counting how much your decision will impact in the game, and which degree you'll have to make them. This encircles character creation, meaning a different start for a Dwarven than a Human PC would actually sum up, and the random factor always helps cRPGs.
Imagine battles were the same each time you played and that your damage per round was simply tied to a single stat called DPS (damage per second), fighting a guard, for example, would only mean hitting him for X seconds to complete the equation: DPS * X_seconds = enemy_hp, while in a game using dice rolls to calculate if it's a hit or not, it opens up possibilities of an unknown result for a battle against a simple guard.
Randomness also helps, for example, in making the player get a difference experience than the first time he played the game. Imagine a situation in which the game is scripted to met NPC X when he reaches his 3rd level. After having played the game for the second time (meaning this one's his third), the player will already know that when he reaches level 3, NPC X appears. If a random sequence of values remotely connected to the PC were used in a calculation like this:
(player_hp + player_constitution) / (player_level - player_race_hp_bonus)
Checks for different skills and traits of the player would be checked against, meaning that unless the PC is the same, the game will react differently. This could be further improved by adding something like this:
(player_hp + player_constitution) / (player_level - (player_race_hp_bonus - random_value))
Which would increase the probabilities of the check not being made with a somehow similar PC. And from there it only increases exponentially...
Well, there goes a wall of text on game development... Seems like modding isn't my only hobby
I see the value in the concept of such things. I mean I definitely enjoyed the stories of FF4 and FF12 way more than the actual game itself and that probably contributes why I have difficulties playing them now. I already know the story; therefore the main aspect of why I play those types of games is lessened.
Also the mod is indeed BG2 Tweaks
I used to try to be "one of the lads", and it didn't work, and I would often get miserable and depressed because I was trying to be something I wasn't. So my Dad once bought Baldur's Gate, and I wasn't particularly interested at first, but then I decided to try it out just for fun, and I thought "wow, this is actually quite good! I'm engaged in this new world that has been created for me to experience, and all of these characters whom I can interact with!" (except I was 18 at the time, raised in Birmingham, and therefore not quite as eloquent as that!).
So for the next few years, I was all "hmm, yeah...roleplaying games. They're fine and all that, but it's a bit geeky, so better not let anybody know that I play them." This was back in 1998-9, when the internet was in its infancy (we're talking AOL, dial-up modems, and connection charges!), about a year or two before Baldur's Gate 2 came out, and I asked for it for my birthday. That's when I discovered the Planetbaldursgate Forum, and realised that there was a whole community out there that I previously didn't know existed! I also realised that, far from being just a silly childhood fad that I'd simply missed out on, multi-user dungeons were very much alive and...well, alive. In the corner of some dingy out-of-the-way street somewhere in town (surely that stuff can't be sharing a high street with Gap, River Island, and JD Sports!!! :O ).
Now I'm all "Screw you! I'm a geek, and proud of it! You normals go watch Eastenders and Match of the Day, and listen to your RnB or whatever it is you pollute your minds with. None of that rubbish for me, thanks!" XD Okay I don't quite say that, but I do no longer feel the need to hide the fact that I'm a geek.
Okay, that's it. Enough of the Coldplay already!!!
Oh, and for the record, I hate Coldplay!!! I'm just parodying the whole "emotional story" thing with that keyboard intro...you know, the one that goes "dadadada dun, dadadada dun, dadadada dun!". :P
My favorite things are Fey themed magicks and Necromancy. With Tome and Blood I have a Sylvan (Fey-blooded) sorcereress and a White Necromancer for good and Pale Master for evil necromancers!
The dialogue is great, witty, and funny at times. The characters are great too! Alora is definitely my favorite! I wish I could get the mod for her in BG2 working QQ
On top of this the actual gameplay itself is REALLY good. As in "This is now my favorite combat system and I compare other tactical combat systems to it" good. Mage battles are like chess matches of piercing barriers, flinging spells, debuffs, offense spells, defense spells, it's great!
Warrior battles are positioning and keeping your backline safe with archers just raining hell from on high!
I have never played another game that encompassed all my favorite character types, world exploration, class themes, and combat.
Usually it's just combat or just story. This has both!
I can fangasm about these games for days! XD
To top it off, dislike pre-set party members? Make a completely unique party based on your IRL friends!
I think the great thing about JRPG and WRPG being different is that i get to take a break from one of them, and then return to the other and enjoy something completely different. Sometimes i'll get burnt out on a WRPG and take up the odd Final Fantasy and really enjoy it, other times i'll have been playing Final Fantasy 10 challenges for a few weeks and get burnt out on that, then i get to return to my dear Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment.
Instead of looking at which genre is better, you should ask yourself what do you feel like playing right now.
"Stamina reserves" - seriously, that's a load of rubbish. Either you have stamina or you don't. What swordsman does a really amazing attack, then goes "oh, that tired me out too much! I must now use an inferior attack for the rest of the battle!". Real fighting does not work that way; the reason people don't always attempt really good attacks is because they tend to be really risky and leave you open, or because you know that when you pull it off once, you won't be able to trick your opponent with it again. If you have a really good attack that works every time, you can do it every time, and if an attack tires you out so much that you can't do it more than once in a 5 minute bout, you're doing it wrong.
Honestly, if fighters are too boring for you (not you personally...the people who make these complaints) and you need a resource management mechanic to make them interesting, don't play a fighter! I don't play a mage and then complain that they're boring because I have to keep using spells and can't just hit things.
Sorry for the (slightly OT) rant but this is a pet hate of mine, so it's good to see somebody else recognise that tactics != resource management. Back to the topic!
I would give Final Fantasy 9 a 10/10 score without a doubt.
You just reminded me.
@typo_tilly your thread of Tilly Wigglebottom was one of the first threads I read through on the site and actually was part of the inspiration for one of my favorite character's I've played. It was an adorable gnome Illusionist/Thief girl, Piro Faeren.
I always meant to thank you for indirectly helping me come up with the character n_n
Edit: Also, you're one of my favorite people on the forums along with @bengoshi and @Aquadrizzt.
I'm sure if I knew you IRL I'd totally have a crush on you if your absolute adorableness here on the forums is an indication of your IRL personality
In hindsight that sounds weird. >_> <_<
ANYWAY BACK TO THE DISCUSSION AT HAND!
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It's by far my favorite Final Fantasy game, on second place I'll put Final Fantasy X because of the gameplay. There is something about the old school touch to Final Fantasy 9, all the unique characters, different races, lovely colorful backgrounds and you really travel across the whole world going from the highest icy tops of a mountain, down to the deepest caves, and even other worlds.I would give Final Fantasy 9 a 10/10 score without a doubt.
My best friend also recommends FF9 hardcore. It's his favorite game in all of ever.
I've played the opening bit until you escape with Dagger and crash in the forest-place-thing but not much past that.
I really liked Final Fantasy Tactics as my favorite JRPG and is one of the few I could play for infinity and never get tired of it.
Despite my dislike of traditional turn based combat; is FF9 good enough beyond that to be worth playing for me?
Also, some spoilers for bravely default below about why I stopped playing it.
Also, I've edited this thing like 20 times now to fix quotes, spoilers, and add stuff. /blech.
I have a heavy love/hate relationship with Dragon Age: Inquisition because I want to play it like an SRPG but it wants me to play it as an ARPG with crappy resource mechanics.
>_>
I was just derping and when I hit stats the very first roll was a 96. I'd never naturally rolled a 96, let alone my very first roll!
She's about midway through BG1, I like BG1 more than BG2 so I'm taking my time and just enjoying things n_n.
I love super cutesy characters/people. Alora, as I've stated in other threads, is my fav npc and one of the reasons why I love my current significant other IRL is she's like a slightly taller Alora but with a pink strip in her hair rather than full pink hair.
Also, I never finished Kotor 2 >_>
I loved Kotor 1 and I've owned Kotor 2 but never got around to playing it.
Maybe I should put Inquisition on hold and go back and play it.
I might be a little biased here, because I only played JRPGs during the golden era of the SNES and PS1. I have very fond memories of this era : for a young teenage boy, the grandeur of FF4 was simply mind-blowing. It was trully epic and "opera-like". However, I'm not blinded by the nostalgia : games were too easy then and must be jacked-up a little to be really enjoyable now.